Patterico's Pontifications

11/23/2008

An Analysis of the Chuck Philips Letters’ Authenticity

Filed under: — Patterico @ 10:18 pm



This page compiles some of the evidence that the letters I have published from Chuck Philips to Alexander Proctor are authentic.

First, there are other online examples of letters from Philips to prison inmates. You can look at two of them at this blog post, by an anonymous blogger who claims that the documents “originated from the office of Jimmy Rosemond’s lawyer Jeffrey Lichtman.” A fax tracker line appears to confirm this.

Jimmy Rosemond was one of two people that Philips accused of having masterminded a 1994 non-fatal shooting of Tupac Shakur. The other alleged mastermind was James Sabatino. Philips later had to retract the story as being based on forged documents that The Smoking Gun suggested had been provided to Philips by Sabatino.

These appear to be letters written to two of the three assailants that Philips alleged to be involved in the shooting. You can read a letter to a “Mr. Campbell” at this link; I have saved a back-up copy here. There is also a letter to a “Mr. Bowens” (Page 1 here; Page 2 here). I have saved a backup copy (Page 1 here; Page 2 here.)

The letter to Mr. Campbell is noteworthy for its references to “backstabbing snitches”:

This is consistent with Philips’s contempt for government informants; indeed, this blog has already discussed how Philips outed one government informant, causing that informant to be beaten and driven underground. The ultimate fate of that informant is another story for another day; there will be a post about the outing of the informant in this space in coming days.

The true identity of Mr. Campbell and Mr. Bowens — and the third alleged assailant in Philips’s retracted story — is also another story for another day. Stay tuned for that as well.

An e-mail to the blogger was not returned. Jeffrey Lichtman agreed to speak with me months ago, but has not returned subsequent e-mails. Neither Lichtman nor the blogger was the source who provided me the letters to Proctor.

In addition, this blog has received several letters from James Sabatino, the inmate who, according to The Smoking Gun, deceived Chuck Philips with phony FBI documents. Sabatino claims that, contrary to the reporting of The Smoking Gun, he is not the person who provided Philips with those phony FBI documents. These claims will be the subject of a future post. However, Sabatino did include a copy of a letter that he claims Philips both e-mailed and sent by mail to Sabatino. That letter will be the subject of a future post.

Compare the signatures on various letters Philips sent to Proctor, Sabatino, and Bowens — all of which originated from different sources:


Signature from letter to Bowens

Signature from second handwritten letter to Proctor

Signature from initial handwritten letter to Proctor

Apparently, when he typed his letters, Philips’s signature was messier:


Signature from letter to Sabatino

Signature from October 24, 2007 letter to Proctor

Signature from November 15, 2007 letter to Proctor

Signature from November 24, 2007 letter to Proctor

Signature from October 9, 2007 letter to Proctor

Sabatino also provided me with photocopies of several envelopes in which Philips sent him material. Here is one example. Now compare the handwriting on that envelope with the handwriting on the letters published by the anonymous blogger (who says they originated from Lichtman) and the letters to Proctor that I obtained. Remember that these all originated from different sources:


Handwriting on letter to Campbell

Handwriting on initial letter to Proctor

Handwriting on envelope sent to Sabatino

Again, all these letters came from different sources. Sabatino was not the source who provided this blog with the letters that Philips wrote to Proctor. Nor was Lichtman, who was the alleged source of the letters published by the anonymous blogger. In addition, my source confirmed where the letters had come from; that person was not Sabatino or Lichtman, the sources of the other letters.

One of the most obvious points is made in the body of the main post: namely, on the letter from Sabatino, there was a photocopy of a business card with Philips’s cell phone number. I called that number and reached Philips. The content of our conversation is included in the main post.

Go back to the main post by clicking here.

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